


The Giver

by Canon_Is_Relative



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Birthday, Birthday Presents, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Dean Winchester Takes Care of Sam Winchester, Gen, Pre-Series, Sam learning to shoot, Sam's Birthday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-04
Updated: 2016-05-04
Packaged: 2018-06-06 07:01:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6744211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canon_Is_Relative/pseuds/Canon_Is_Relative
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's Sam's ninth birthday, and Dean didn't steal these presents.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Giver

**Author's Note:**

> Written for sweet Sammy's birthday, quoted text is from Lois Lowry's book _The Giver_.

There are packages wrapped in newsprint on the kitchen table. Sam’s been ignoring them all morning. He has soccer in an hour and he needs to get his homework done.

At a quarter past noon, fifteen minutes after Dean’s early shift at the Gas’n’sip ends – five full minutes before Sam expects him home – the door’s flung open and Dean’s bursting into the room, “Happy Birthday, Sammy!” on his lips along with a smile that dies when his eyes flick to the pile of unopened presents.

“Oh come on, Sammy,” Dean says, dropping a bag onto the table and shrugging off his jacket. “I didn’t steal ‘em this time, honest!”

Sam wants to protest, promise Dean that he hadn’t thought that for even a minute. “I didn’t want to look ‘til you were back,” he mumbles instead, scuffing his socks on the carpet and flushing when Dean ruffles his hair, all smiles and shoulder-punches again, opening the plastic bag and pulling out a box of donuts and a big carton of milk.

The first present Dean hands him is a book, Sam can tell that even before he tears off the rumpled funny pages and turns it over in his hands. _The Giver_. Sam frowns down at it. The teacher at his last school had made them read it. Sam had hated it. Had, in fact, read it twice, trying to figure out what was wrong with him, what he was missing, because it had to be a special book to have someone so cool as Ms. Mahoney in raptures over it, right? But all it had done was make Sam feel almost unbearably sad, aching and helpless as he followed along on Jonas's journey with the Giver.

Sam licks his lips and glances up at Dean, who’s looking at him expectantly, leaning forward, and that pendant around his neck from last Christmas swings free of his shirt, catching the light. It’s so shiny, Sam thinks, distracted. And it’s so unlike Dean, to wear something like that. The book in Sam’s hands is shiny, too. A hard cover, its brand-new dust jacket not even creased.

“Thanks Dean,” Sam says, wrapping his hands around the unbroken spine, “I love it.”

Dean’s face breaks into a triumphant grin, eyes shining like the sun as he thumps Sam on the back. “You spent enough time with your nose in that thing, knew you musta been sad to leave it behind last time we picked up.” Sam smiles to mirror Dean until he feels it catch and take hold for real, finds himself flipping through the book to find the parts he remembers, breathing deep the smell of fresh pages.

The other packages turn out to be his favorite candy, a whoopee cushion, and a pack of new mechanical pencils. And finally, from Dad, something Dean handles with dangerous care when he hands it over. It’s heavy, and Dean leans forward to help him unwrap it. A Bowie knife with a grip that fits in Sam’s hand like it was made for him. Sam wraps his fingers around it, feels along the runes burned into the blade, looks up at Dean and realizes his mouth is hanging open.

“I remember the first time Dad put a weapon into my hand.” Dean clears his throat, shaking his head slightly.

“Yeah?” Sam asks, not knowing where to look. Between the blade and his brother, he feels utterly dazzled.

“Yeah.” Dean had been eight, and it was a shotgun. Sam’s nine now, and he has a knife. “He didn’t have much choice,” Dean tries to tell him, to justify. “Something was coming and he didn’t have time to find someone to leave us with, so he left me with a gun and told me to salt the doors and look after you and I did just fine.”

Sam turns the knife over in his hands, carefully slides it back into its sheath. He looks up at his brother, then towards the shotgun leaning against the doorframe. “Will you teach me?”

Sam skips soccer that afternoon and they hike out to this quiet prairie Dean knows about. Sam’s ears are ringing and his shoulder hurts like crazy by the time the sun’s going down, but Dean’s grinning and Sam is too; doesn’t matter than he sounds like he’s underwater cuz Sam hears what Dean’s saying, understands the pride in the way Dean shakes him, wraps his arm around Sam’s shoulder and jostles him when they turn to walk home. As they cross the railroad tracks, Sam hands back Dean’s shotgun so he can dig into his pocket. He pulls out the bag and separates the last two Swedish fish and hands one to Dean.

That night, in bed, Sam flumps up the meager pillows best he can and cracks open his new book. The pages are untouched by any gummy, grimy fingers and no one’s scrawled anything either useful or obscene in the margins. He’ll figure this book out for sure, now, he thinks, smiling at Dean when his brother drops down onto his bed across the room.

“Happy birthday, kiddo,” Dean grins. Sam throws a pillow at him, because he has to, and tells Dean exactly how old he is and how he’s not a kid anymore. Dean just steals the pillow and tucks it under his head before turning on his side, letting out an exaggerated yawn. “Nice try, kiddo, but you’ll always be my kid brother, so get used to it.”

Sam huffs and fans out the pages of his book, finally giving in to the urge to stick his nose between them, gorging himself on that new-book smell, exotic and pure. He imagines for a moment that these pages could hold anything, any story, but he can’t pretend for long that he doesn’t know how this one goes. Cracking the spine, he smoothes his fingers down the title page and begins to read.

_It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened. No. Wrong word, Jonas thought. Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen. Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice. At first, he had only been fascinated…_


End file.
